Mary Cowhey

Research Areas:
Mary Cowhey’s research interests include multicultural and social justice education, philosophy with children, gay and lesbian issues in elementary schools, understanding and removing early childhood trauma as a barrier to learning.

Activities & Honors:
Mary Cowhey has been teaching first and second grade and mentoring student teachers at Jackson St. School in Northampton, MA for ten years. Before becoming a teacher, she was a community organizer for fourteen years. She is a recipient of the 2002 Milken National Educator Award. In 2005 she received the New England Anti-Defamation League’s World of Difference Institute Teacher Recognition and Sol Kolack Educator Awards for her development of curriculum that fosters understanding and respect for diversity. Her second grade class won a distinguished National League of Women Voters award for the voter registration drive they organized in the fall of 2004. Her teaching was featured in the documentary film, Oliver Button is a Star. She also served as an NGO delegate to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in 2001. Her articles and essays on teaching have been published in Rethinking Schools, Why We Teach, What Keeps Teachers Going? and Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach.

Selected Publications:
• Cowhey, Mary. (2006). Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.